Some well-cooked city caterpillars! These were from a similar recipe to the one described in this post, but the chef - working in a kitchen of a high end restaurant - left the caterpillars whole, as he prefers them that way. I think I prefer Catherine's recipe, which is why that's the one I've written about here...

For that recipe, my neighbour Argita and I cooked the caterpillars together , and I weighed and timed everything. I did the same with other women, and each recipe seemed to be a subtle variation on the same theme. Every dish was fairly similar, but I think I liked Argita’s the best.

City cuisine, though, is different.When I spent some time in Ouagadougou, Catherine, the wife of one of my collaborators, showed me a new and different way of cooking dried caterpillars. Again, I weighed and timed everything.

This recipe uses more oil - which is probably one reason that I’ve not seen caterpillars cooked this way in the village, where oil is a luxury and used sparingly - but admittedly, it is delicious. So, for those of you lucky enough to have access to dried caterpillars and lots of oil, here’s recipe #2 for you:

Ingredients

Chitoumou* 200g

Tomato 150g

Onion 100g

Palm oil** 150ml

Salt 1tsp

*Cirina butyrospermi caterpillars - although the closely related Cirina forda caterpillar, or even the Gonimbrasia belina caterpillar known as the mopane worm, would probably also work well in this recipe.**Any oil should work well, apparently - it’s a matter of preference. Catherine likes palm oil, as it’s locally available at an affordable price, and her family enjoys the taste. But European consumers might want to go for something more sustainable…

​Instructions

Cover the chitoumou in boiling water and boil over a high heat for at least 15 minutes. When you think they are done, take one out and try to bite it. If it’s still a bit tough, throw it back in and keep going - the time it takes to soften them will depend a bit on where you are, and the water you’re using.

Meanwhile, chop the tomato and onion finely.

Once the chitoumou are soft enough to bite into easily, take them off the heat and drain them.

This part is a bit arduous if you have a lot of caterpillars: Take each caterpillar, and chop off its head. Then, cut the body in two.

Heat the palm oil in a large frying pan until it’s hot.

Mix the tomatoes, onions, salt and caterpillars, and add these to the pan. If the frying pan isn’t large enough to fit all of the caterpillars in one go, do them in a couple of batches. Fry for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Remove from the pan with a slotted spoon. Drain excess oil, and serve with bread.​

​In Catherine’s house, we all sat around a communal plate of caterpillars, took chunks of bread, and heaped caterpillars onto our bread as we ate. We also just ate the caterpillars on their own occasionally, as you might help yourself to a few peanuts at a time. Her children were especially enthusiastic about the caterpillars, which are a rare treat.

Catherine's two children tucking into their caterpillars. I've cropped out their faces for privacy reasons, so you'll just have to imagine their enthusiastic smiles!

Here I offer you a recipe for cooking dried caterpillars, courtesy of my neighbour Argita.Sure, the main ingredient may be unobtainable and obscure at present – but watch this space. After all, if inhabitants of Smethwick can enjoy their caterpillars, why cant the rest of the world?RecipeServes 3-4

The above measurements are rounded up or down from weights measured in the field. The result was delicious. Promise. I even have video to prove it. Here’s what you need to do:

Wash your caterpillars. Twice. Meanwhile, put a pan of water on to boil.

Tip the clean caterpillars into the boiling water. The water should just about cover them.

Measure out 6-7g of salt and chuck it in with the caterpillars. This may seem like a lot, but don’t worry, not all of it remains in the final dish! The water should now be simmering gently. As gentle as one can be with caterpillars (for edible insect newbies – that's pretty damn gentle. Insects are tiny, beautiful, dangerous things. Let’s treat them well.).

While the caterpillars are being softened by the boiling, salted water, it’s time to crush the soumbala into a fine powder. Or not, if you’re using one of the alternatives. Soumbala is a condiment I’ve never encountered outside of West Africa, but while I’m here, I have it with everything. Alternatives I can tentatively suggest are – Miso? Soy sauce? Natto? – and I suggest these not merely due to spending too long in Japan, but also because of the way soumbala is made: it’s a fermented bean paste. It gives you the ultimate umami flavour, and to be honest, it’s miles ahead of the ‘alternatives’ I’ve just suggested. I have no idea why the hipsters haven’t discovered it yet. Watch this space.

Chop the onions and tomatoes into slivers. No need to worry about cutting them too fine.

Have 25 minutes passed since you put the caterpillars in the boiling water? No? Go collect some firewood. You never know when it might come in handy. Or, if you’re lucky enough to have a gas cooker and a bottle of wine handy - pour out 125ml , and enjoy, while you wait.

Once your 25 minutes are up, try a caterpillar. How does it taste? Do tell.

When the caterpillars are the kind of texture you’d hope them to be (what does this even mean??? OK – if they are chewable, and a bit meaty. Does that help?), drain them and leave them in a bowl to one side.

Add 40ml oil to the pan, with the flame on a low heat. Add your chopped slivers of onion and tomato. For the next 15 minutes, let them cook, and stir occasionally to make sure they don’t burn.

15 minutes is up? Add 500ml of water and turn up the heat a notch. As it comes to the boil, add some seasoning (1/2 a stock cube. Here in Burkina, that’s a cube of Maggi. But there are as many brands to choose from as there are dangerous e-numbers lurking within.) if you wish, and a pinch of salt. Add your caterpillars.

10-15 minutes later, you should have a savoury caterpillar stew ready and waiting to be served. Combine with a starch and green veg of your choice for a deliciously unusual meal.

In November, we`re holding an entomophagy event - a six course insectivorous lunch, based on a traditional Italian feast menu. This week, we held a trial event. This involved playing around with different ways of incoporating Japanese insects into our favourite Italian dishes, and serving them up to friends and specialists. See below for photos and explanations of some of the dishes! (Comments, advice and questions are all more than welcome)

Why Italian? Three reasons: Firstly, we wanted to take on the challenge of incorporating insects into the cuisine of a European country, since Europe is the one continent that lacks a history of entomophagy*. Secondly, Rome, Italy, was the location of the 2012 landmark FAO conference on entomophagy (which resulted in the publication of recent comprehensive FAO report on global entomophagy and food and feed security). Third and finally, tomatoes are a key ingredient in Italian cuisine. Why is this important? Because tomatoes are rich in glutamate, and are therefore often enhanced with small amounts of inosinate-rich foods such as anchovies or sardines to create a more intense umami taste. In this way, we hope to use insects as an inosinate-rich ingredient that will deepend the taste of typical Italian cuisine.

*(There are a few exceptions to this: For example, Casu Marzu is an Italian cheese that contains live fly larvae, which are eaten with the cheese; A similar example is found in the German cheese Milbenkase, containing live cheese mites.)